I’ve worked against my will in nearly every factory in my small community. Nodding off on assembly lines after midnight, smashing quotas alone and with a team, palletizing products by hand when the machine built for it broke down. I got sick from constantly inhaling chemicals and dust, my back giving out for a pittance of a cheque. And when I looked around, I saw this same thing everywhere. Everyone I had ever known was trapped in wage slavery, and no matter how hard we worked, our lives barely improved or even became worse.
Older folks worked themselves to the bone, bled for it, and missed out on countless hours with their families. All in the name of capital. I watched a small layer grow rich while the rest of us, the producers of everything, suffered.
One day, while working in a lab where the air was thick with acrylics, fumes, and fine dust, even with “state-of-the-art” ventilation, I realized it was only a matter of time before I got COPD or worse. My hands ached from keeping up with the pace of production. I began to think seriously about my future, that maybe I’d be doing this until I died. No benefits, no pension, no security—just a slow grind until I was replaced by someone younger, like so many before me.
But I also knew what capitalists expect. That workers will be too tired after labouring all day to think, to study, to organize. This is true, but I took that as a challenge. I started studying every chance I got. At work during breaks and between orders, I read Capital, Volume I by Karl Marx.
That book changed everything. It explained not just my pain, but the pain of everyone around me. It showed that capitalism is not eternal, that it is a historical system built on exploitation, and that it can be overcome like every system before it. It made clear that our suffering is not natural or deserved; it’s something that is engineered. And it helped me understand that freedom doesn’t mean escaping work, but transforming it through organizing with other workers to build a society where our labour benefits everyone, not just the few.
That’s what made me a Communist.
– Michael R., Belleville
